Moving house/area/lifestyle when pregnant

[SpringOne]

Hi everyone. Looking for some advice or maybe similar experiences. I just found out I am pregnant with my first baby, about 6 weeks. Husband and I had been talking about it and agreed to try, but didn't expect it to happen basically immediately so happy but a bit shocked too.

The last couple years we have been talking about relocating to a new city which is near his family. As well as more family support we could afford a bigger house in a nicer area than we are now, better lifestyle with access to nice shops, cafes, countryside etc. Good area for young families on paper. We are looking at our timeline to put our house on the market and buy in the new area, the things I am mainly worried about are

Is this too much change at once? Should we wait? But then after baby is born there won't be much better time to move?

What if we have issues with a chain/sale falling through?

I have a few friends in the new area, plus inlaws, but will it be hard making new mum friends in a new area? Or is it a good time to do it because I can then meet people at baby groups etc?

Is there anything obvious we are not considering here?

Thanks in advance

If you want to do it, do it now. Practically, it will be much easier to move without a baby in tow. It means the friends you make through parenting stuff will all be near you. And it means that you won’t have the absolute chaos of trying to move childcare (if area is like mine, you need to book it now. And that’s tricky if you’re not sure where you’ll be living).

Do it now if you're going to. Otherwise all the people you meet on maternity leave will be in the wrong area and you'll have to move away from them when you do relocate.

One of my best friends has been in a similar position to you. They decided to put the house on the market but with a limit of taking it down when she got to 6 months if it hadn’t sold yet (which is what they’ve now had to do as she is due in 4 weeks and still no sale!). So now they’re staying put for another year and will try selling again when the baby is closer to 1.

Thanks everyone, this is reassuring that we are thinking along the right lines, we definitely want to do it so let's get it over with!

@Lillers that's a sensible limit, thanks for the idea. Wouldn't be a disaster for us to stay put and have baby here but not our ideal.

We were in a similar position and essentially did everything wrong, didn't list our flat until we had a newborn and then had to show the property in first few months, moved to a whole new area when he was 6 months old. It was deeply stressful! Definitely try to do it now if you can, a lot can happen in 6-7 months and it may go smoothly.

We did that. We completed on the house two weeks before I found out I was pregnant with my second. We were going to move in and renovate room by room by room but being pregnant meant we wanted it all done before we moved, so we ended up moving when I was 6 months pregnant, which meant juggling work and renovations whilst pregnant. My two year old also had to change nurseries when we moved, and then we potty trained him soon after. So we had a lot of change!

It was nice to finally be settled once we moved, but I don’t have many friends here so my maternity leave is very different the second time round - no coffees, no pushchair walks, etc. However, having a toddler, I can only really do that when he’s at nursery so my time to do all that would have been limited.

We did think about doing the NCT again when we moved so we can meet people locally, but decided against it as everyone else’s journey would be different as first time parents compared to ours. But that would be a good way to meet people - do ante natal course. Also, once you start going to baby groups you’ll meet people there too.

I get its daunting, but having a baby is the perfect way to make new friends.

And congratulations!

I’d do it now, so it’s more likely you can move before your due date. Could you sell and rent in the new city, if you can’t find a house you like in time? I’d avoid a renovation project if possible. At least so you’re local for seeing midwife in the new location, and doing NCT. It’s easier to get a mortgage without dependents as well. You don’t have to say you’re pregnant when doing the mortgage application, I didn’t.

We moved when I was about 32 weeks pregnant. No NCT due to COVID, but met lots of people once baby was born. I have made a lot of mum friends, even people who have lived in this area a long time because when they’re really little (under 2) they change stage really quickly and it’s nice being around people who are going through the same thing.

Getting a mortgage once you have dependents (maybe you reduce your hours, or you have childcare fees) is much harder. We now have two and want to move somewhere a bit bigger but can’t.

DH has found it much harder to make friends. He’s an introvert and an older dad. Life changes and he’s found it hard that we can’t go out to eat as much.

We accepted an offer on our house in January 2021 two weeks before my due date!! It was during COVID too and housing market was mental. Despite then having no chain we had several offers rejected/lost out to higher bids and ended up moving in with my in-laws when our son was 3 months old. Luckily I get on with them and it was quite a blessing in disguise as my MiL did our laundry and most of the cooking!! After 3 months with still no sign of a purchase we moved into a rental which certainly wasn't ideal but served its purpose. A couple more months went by and we finally had an offer accepted. We moved into our new house end of October.

It wasn't an ideal year but looking back, we wouldn't have changed it! The house we got is one that we would no longer be able to afford it we had waited any longer due to what happened next with the market. The new area we are in is so perfect for our family and it's lovely watching our little boy grow up in this house.

Your reasons for moving all sound very sensible and the area you are contemplating sounds great. I definitely agree that moving around having a baby is great timing in terms of opening doors to meeting people. I have made a whole new group of friends since having my DS. Some of whom are now friends for life without a doubt.

I would just say - have those discussions around contingency plans etc before putting your house on the market. We already knew we had the offer of somewhere to live if the transition didn't go smoothly to plan which reduced stress enormously.

There is never an 'easy' time to move, and I guess there will be pros and cons to any situation. It is what you make it. My son lived in 4 different houses in his 1st year and we survived!! It would have been harder with a toddler... Very glad we are now where we are 😊

I would definitely go for it, once baby is born you will have to declare a dependent and that will lower your affordability for a mortgage

Thank you so much everyone, this is really reassuring. We are meeting agents this week to put our house on the market - eek!
I know this is probably not rational but I can't help anxiously thinking it's so early and what if this pregnancy doesn't work out, trying not to focus on that as we wanted to make these changes previously, just the has pregnancy shortened our timelines.

Just wanted to put an update for anyone else who might come across this in a similar situation. We decided to go ahead with the move, have had an offer accepted on our house and waiting to hear if our offer on an onward purchase has been accepted. Fingers crossed. Regardless of whether this particular purchase works out, it now feels really clear moving before the baby comes is the right thing to do, and hearing others' experiences on this thread really helped solidify that.

Good luck with it all! 🥰

Could I ask how it went? I am currently in the same position 18 +5 and seriously considering a move to partner's home city. He has friends and family there that I know but no independent[ndent friends as of yet. We would have more family support, living costs would be cheaper and we would be able to afford to buy a house- we can't get more than a small 2 bed flat with no outside space where we are in the south east! All so overwhelming! x

Wow I forgot all about this thread! We made the move and it's worked out great. Moved when I was just 7 months pregnant, baby is 14 months now. I really enjoyed spending my mat leave meeting new people and exploring the new area, I do miss seeing friends from where we used to live more often but it's good to be closer to my in laws for support and I feel really settled. Definitely glad we did it. And we got lucky with the house but can afford way more space than in our previous area, which helped a lot with the newborn days when we had to stay home a lot in the winter!

Thanks so much for responding! I have been quite overwhelmed and tearful today about it all and this has helped me feel a tiny bit better! So glad it worked out for you xx